


(Ty/ ^ 






WHO ARE SECTIONAL? 




BY QEORGE M. WESTON. 

II 



S.A. 



J 



It is objected to the Republican party, that 
its candidates for both the Presidency and Vice 
Presidency are taken from the North ; that it 
exists, as an effective organization, only in the 
free States, and will present electoral tickets in 
only two or three slave States; that its triumph 
would be a sectional triumph of the North over 
the South ; and that its success will be equiva- 
lent to a dissolution of the Union, because the 
slave States will certainly not submit to it, and 
perhaps ought not to submit to it. This objec- 
tion, already taken in many quarters, has re- 
ceived the special endorsement of one who has 
filled the highest position in our Government. 
Mi". Fillmore, in the many addresses he has 
delivered to his fellow-citizens, who have as- 
sembled at various places to welcome his return 
from Europe, has made this his capital, most 
emphatic, and, indeed, most fatal objection to 
the Republican party. At Albany, Mr. Fillmore 
said: 

" We see a political party presenting candi- 
' dates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency, 

* selected for the first time from the free States 

* alone, with the avowed purpose of electing 

* these candidates by suffrages of one part of 
' the Union only, to rule ever the whole United 
' States. Can it be possible that those who are 

* engaged in such a measure can have seri- 

* ously reflected upon the consequences which 
' must inevitably follow, in case of success ? 
' [Cheers.] Can they have the madness or the 

* folly to believe that our Southern brethren 

* would submit to be governed by such a Chief 
'Magistrate? [Cheers.] Would he be required 

* to follow the same rule prescribed by those 

* who elected him in making his appointments ? 

* If a man living south of Mason and Dixon's 

* line be not worthy to be President or Vice 

* President, would it be proper to select one 

* from the same quarter, as one of his Cabinet 
' Council, or to represent the nation in a foreign 

* country? Or, indeed, to collect the revenue, 
' or administer the laws of the United States ? 



If not, what new rule is the President to adopt 
in selecting men for office, that the people 
themselves discard in selecting him ? These 
are serious but practical questions, and, in 
order to appreciate them fully, it is only ne- 
cessary to turn the tables upon ourselves. 
Suppose that the South, having a majority of 
the electoral votes, should declare that they 
would only have slaveholders for President 
and Vice President, and should elect such by 
their exclusive suffrages to rule over us at the 
North. Do you think we would submit to it ? 
No, not for a moment. [Applause.] And do 
you believe that your Southern brethren are 
less sensitive on this subject than you are, or 
less jealous of their rights? [Tremendous 
cheering.] If you do, let me tell you that you 
are mistaken. And, therefore, you must see 
that if this sectional party succeeds, it leads 
inevitably to the destruction of this beautiful 
fabric, reared by our forefathers, cemented by 
their blood, and bequeathed to us as a price- 
less inheritance." 
Undoubtedly, the practice has been com- 
mon, in selecting candidates for the Presidency 
and Vice Presidency, to take one from the free 
States and the other from the slave States, but 
the practice has been by no means uniform ; 
and when Mr. Fillmore undertook to say that 
what had been done by the Philadelphia Con- 
vention had been done ^^for the first timej' he 
exhibited a strange ignorance of, or total inat- 
tention to, the history of the country. In the 
election of 1828, one of the parties presented 
General Jackson, of Tennessee, for the Presi- 
dency, and Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, for 
the Vice Presidency; while the other party pre- 
sented Mr. Adams, of Massachusetts, for the 
Presidency, and Mr. Rush, of Pennsylvania, 
for the Vice Presidency; and the last-named 
ticket doubtless received the support of Mr. 
Fillmore himself. 

At the preceding election, that of 1824, the 
votes were not dirided between two parties, but 



Bcattered upon many candidates. However, 
of" 261 votes thrown for President, 177 were 
given to Southern men, and of 260 votes thrown 
for Vice President, 221 were given to South- 
ern men, so that, in most of the States, the 
votes must have been given to candidates from 
the South for both offices. 

In 1836, the candidates of the Whig party 
were General Harrison, of Ohio, for the Presi- 
dency, and Air. Granger, of New York, for the 
second office, except in Massachusetts, which 
supported Mr. AVebster for the Presidency, and 
Mr. Granger for the second office. Mr. Fill- 
more, undoubtedly, voted the Harrison and 
Granger ticket. At the same election, South 
Carolina voted for Mangum, of North Carolina, 
for President, and Tyler, of Virginia, for the 
second office. At the same election, Georgia 
and Tennessee voted for Judge White, of Ten- 
nessee, for President, and Tyler, of Virginia, 
for the second office. It is not recollected that 
any of the individuals, or parties, or States, con- 
cerned in these transactions, were charged with 
the design of overthrowing the Union. 

Mr. Bright, of Indiana, has been elected 
President of the present Senate, in the place of 
Vice President King, deceased. Mr. Bright is 
therefore, to all intents and purposes. Vice 
President of the United States, performs the 
present duties of that office, and would suc- 
ceed to the first office, upon the same contin- 
gencies as would a Vice President elected by 
the people. We now have, therefore, both the 
President and Vice President from the free 
States — the very thing pronounced by Mr. Fill- 
more to be so unprecedented and so dangerous. 
Or does Mr. Fillmore hold that to be unlawful, 
when proposed to be done by " Black Repuhli- 
cans," which is entirely lawful when done by 
anybody else ? 

Mr. Fillmore is equally at fault in suggest- 
ing, either that Col. Fremont would ostracise 
Southern applicants for office, provided they 
possess the Jeffersonian qualifications, or that 
Southern men would refuse to take office un- 
der him. The prediction may safely be ven- 
tured, that enough men from Virginia alone 
•will be on their knees to Colonel Fremont for 
office, to exhaust all his patronage. Mr. Fill- 
more's own experience should have enlighten- 
ed him on that point. Nobody knows better 
than he does, what vast numbers of his old 
Abolition associates were transformed into im- 
passioned Union-savers, by the golden touch of 
patronage. The incumbent of the Presidency, 
be he who he may, o^ conduct as he may, will 
always have as many supporters as he can com- 
fortably provide for. 

The assumption that the slave States must 
have the candidate for the Presidency or 
Vice Presidency upon every ticket, can only be 
justified by assuming, contrary to the fact, that 
they compose one-half of the nation. Now, in 
round numbers, of the nineteen millions of 
free persons in the United States, by the census 



of 1850, thirteen million?, or more than two 
thirds, resided in the tree States, and this dis- 
proportion is constantly and rapidly increasing. 
Allowing for the slaves of the South, according 
to the rule of the Federal Constitution, and the 
preponderance of the free States is still in the 
proportion of 144 to 90, or more than three 
fifths. The slave States do not constitute one- 
half of the nation, either in numbers, wealth, or 
any legitimate element of political power. 

But is it true, in point of fact, on any fair 
view of things, that the Philadelphia Conven- 
tion did select both its candidates from the 
North ? Colonel Fremont was born in Geor- 
gia, was reared and educated in South Caro- 
lina, and had married the daughter of a Mis- 
souri slaveholder. He is Southern in origin, 
training, and association. When, and how, 
and where, did he become a Northern man ? 
Certainly, not by his residence in California. 
That State is on neither side of Mason and 
Dixon's line, for the simple reason that that line 
was never run so far west. Our Pacific Terri- 
tories constitute a distinct political system of 
their own. They are totally disconnected, and 
must ever remain so, from the sectional division 
of the Atlantic States. That division appeals 
neither to their interests nor their passions. 
Distance of space has the same effect in pro- 
ducing impartiality as distance of time. It 
has been said that the contemporaneous judg- 
ment of the United States upon European 
events, is as much to be relied upon as the judg- 
ment of posterity. Our Pacific coast is near- 
ly three times as distant, in time of communi- 
cation, as are France and England. The States 
which will arise on the Pacific may hereafter 
become the umpires of the Republic. They 
belong neither to the North nor the South, in 
any sense which can connect them with our 
controversies, either for principle or for power. 
They have independent objects of their own, 
and will always pursue their own peculiar sys- 
tems of politics. 

It is true that California is a free State, 
but its political associations have been steadily 
with the slave States. With the exception of 
the brief term of Colonel Fremont in the Uni- 
ted States Senate, California has sent no man 
to either House of Congress, who has not gone 
with those who went farthest in the support of 
Slavery. At this moment, that State is confi- 
dently relied upon to vote for Mr. Buchanan, 
the Southern candidate for the Presidency. 
California, although not itself afflicted with Sla- 
very, has been, in short, Pro-Slavery. At any 
rate, it has not been Anti-Slavery. It is not 
an '*^6o?j<io/u2ed" State, as Southern gentle- 
men would say that Massachusetts is. Resi- 
dence in California affords no proof, and raises 
no presumption even, of hostility to the pecu- 
liar institutions of the South. 

In truth, the real point of the objection to 
the Republican nominations, which Mr. Fill- 
mpre h^a embodied in his Albany address, is 



not to the residence of the candidates, but to 
the issues raised, and to the sectional location 
of the strecs;th relied upon to elect those candi- 
dates. If the Republican party had nomina- 
ted Francis P. Blair, of Maryland, for the Presi- 
dency, and Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, for 
the Vice Presidency, the opposition of the South 
would have lost none of its keenness, and the 
apprehensions of a dissolution of the Union 
entertained by Mr. Fillmore would not have 
been one whit less jjloomy. Indeed, it is quite 
probable that as the Pierces, the Shannons, the 
Douglases, and the Buchanans, are more de- 
tested in the free States than any Southern men 
holding the same opinions, and pursuing the 
same policy, so, in the slave Sta,tes, the 
Blairs and the Clays would be more obnoxious 
than even the Wades and Wilsons of the North. 
No ! The real objection is not. to the local 
residence of the Republican candidates. The 
objection to Colonel Fremont is not that he 
was born in Georgia, educated in South Caro- 
lina, married into the family of a Missouri slave- 
holder, and now has his tesidence and inter- 
ests in a State on the Pacific, which is in no 
way involved in the sectional disputes of the 
Atlantic States ; the objection is, that he is 
the candidate of the seventeen free States, 
against Mr. Buchanan, the candidate of the 
fourteen slave States. The objection is, that 
the party which supports Colonel Fremont is, 
in reference to the location of its strength, 
bounded by a geographical line ; and that its 
success would be the triumph of one section 
over another. 

in this division of the States, Delaware is 
reckoned as a free State. It ought to be so 
reckoned, in reference to the issues involved in 
the present contest. Delaware has a little lin- 
gering remnant of Slavery, but has long pro- 
hibited the exportation of slaves. Delaware 
has no interest in slave-breeding or Slavery ex- 
tension, but is opposed to both. During the pen- 
dency of the Wilmot Prov.no controversy, the 
Legislature of Delaware instructed their Sena- 
tors in Congress to obtain, if possible, the pro- 
hibition of Slavery in the territories of the 
United States. The interests, opinions, and sen- 
timents, of Delaware, are all hostile to the ex- 
tension of Slavery. The Republican party ex- 
ists there in full vigor, and if Col. Fremont 
loses the vote of ' i State, it will only be in con- 
sequence of the disturbing element of Ameri- 
canism. 

I do not affect to deny that the spectacle of 
the seventeen free States arrayed against the 
fourteen slave States, which is substantially the 
aspect of the pending Presidential contest, is 
one to be contemplated with profound concern. 
I owe it to the candor with which I desire to 
discuss all political questions, and to the intel- 
ligence of those to whom this paper is address- 
ed, to admit that the existing condition of thin3S 
is most undesirable and most deplorable. Is it 
remediable ? — and if so, by whom? Are the free 



j States respouvsible for this condition of things, 
or can they, consistently with their principles and 
: convictions, do anything which will put an end 
|to it ? 

I A difference of opinion, broad, deep, and ir- 
! reconcilable, in reference to the institution of 
Slavery, exists in the country. It is not an 
old difference of opinion, but a modern dlffer- 
, ence of opinion. It has arisen quite within 
the recollection of men in middle life. The free 
I States, still holding fast to the views of all the 
fathers of the Republic, North and South, re- 
I gard Slavery as morally wrong, politically dan- 
gerous, and, in an economical point of view, 
wasteful, exhausting, and ruinous. With such 
opinions, long cherished and clearly immova- 
! ble, the free States cannot consent to the ex- 
' tension of Slavery over the Territories of the 
Union. On the other hand, the slave States 
I have, of late, adopted the opinion that the in- 
j stitution of Slavery is both abstractly right and 
1 economically advantageous. They believe, or 
I affect to believe, that its extension is for the 
general good, and, at any rate, essential to their 
own interest. Here is a case of irreconcilable 
difference of opinion between the two sections 
I of the country. Regret it as much as we may, 
, here it is; and what is to be done about it? Is 
i there really any other solution of it, than that 
! which is the solution of all other questions under 
republican forms of government — the submis- 
j sion of the minority to the fairly-expressed will 
' of the majority? Is any other solution of itpos- 
I sible, or would any other solution of it be sub- 
I mitted to ? Is it seriously proposed, that seven 
1 teen States shall yield to fourteen States ; that 
1 thirteen millions of people shall yield to six 
! millions? 

Clearly, the minority must submit. The only 
alternative to it (viz : compromise) is now im- 
possible. That was resorted to in 1820, when 
the Territories were divided by a parallel of 
! latitude. But the South effaced that line in 
j 1854, and still oppose its restoration. Com- 
j promise being impossible, nothing remains but 
' the arbitrament of power, to be exercised peace- 
fully and fairly, according to the forms and 
principles of the fundamental compact which 
constitutes us one nation. The Government is 
strong enough, the Union is strong enough, to 
bear the strain of even such a strujrgle as this, 
deeply as the necessity for it is to be regretted. 
But if the event should prove otherwise, and if, 
in truth, the minority of the Union will leave 
it if they cannot rule it, the path of duty is net 
less clear. The majority have no moral right 
to abdicate their power ; they are respousibl 
to themselves, to the world, and to posterit 
for the intelligent, well-considered, and firm e 
ercise of it. 

In respect, however, to this apprehender 
threatened dissolution of the Union by the So 
it is the stalest, the poorest, and the palt 
pretext of American politics. From wha 
other quarter of the compass a disaoluti 



the Union may come, it will never come from | 
the South ; it will never come from States 
whose peculiar institution renders them incapa- 
ble of a separate and independent existence. 
The maintenance of a self-sustained power 
among the nations of the earth is impossible [ 
with any people weakened, cankered, and de- ' 
moralized, by Negro Slavery. The two things ; 
t'ftnnot coexist. No example of it can be 
ioand, in the long history of that institution. 
The nearest approach to an exception is the \ 
case of Brazil ; and that is an instance, not of 
independence achieved, but of dominions divi- | 
ded between two branches of a reigning family. 
Negro Slavery is essentially a colonial institu- 
tion ; it has always existed in colonies, or, as 
in our Southern States, under conditions ena- 
bling it to draw protection from the power and 
vigor of free communities. The elder Quincy i 
informs us, that wheu Mr. Calhoun spoke, in 
1820, of a withdrawal of the Southern States 1 
from the Union as a possible event, it was with 
a view to a subsequent connection toith Great 
Britain. The same thing was openly proclaim- 
ed the other day at the Capitol, by one of the 
Senators from Kentucky, Mr. Thompson. 

Not only is this threat of a dissolution of the 
Union, by the South, a groundless, an idle, and 
even a ludicrous pretext ; it is even more, and 
worse I It is defiance and insult ! If the four- 
teen slave States will not submit, who is to sub- 
mit? Is the majority to submit? Are the 
seventeen free States, with more than two-thirds 
of the free people of the country, to be dragoon- 
ed into obedience? The South refuses all 
compromise. The lists are closed. There 
must be a clear victory for the one side or for 
the other. The one party, or the other, must 
go to the wall. The rule of the majority is re- 
publican, and can be submitted to without dis- 
honor. We submit to it every day of our lives. 
The rule of the minority is tyranny, in every 
circumstance which can define tyranny, and 
nobody but a poltroon will succumb to it. The 
Government we live under deserves all our 
affections and all our support, but only because 
it reflects, or can be made to reflect, the fairly 
and constitutionally expressed will of the ma- 
jority of the people. Whenever it comes to be 
controlled by menaces of revolution and seces- 
sion from minorities, it will represent only those 
who can threaten the loudest. That day is, 
happily, far distant. 

Be the issue of existing collisions of opinion 
what it may, it is an inestimable moral advan- 
tage to the North, that it stands upon doctrines 
common to the whole country when the Con- 
fititution was formed. The North has adopted 
Eo new opinions, and proposes no new policy. 
When the slave States formed the existiug 
Union, they did it voluntarily, and with the full 
knowledge that the free Slates abhorred the 
institution of Slavery, and would not permit 
Ha extension. The Ordinance of 1787 is an 
imperishable monument, which attests to pos- 



terity the opinions of the framers of the Gov- 
ernment. It is the South, and not the North, 
which has seen new lights, and proposes inno- 
vations upon the principles of our political 
partnership. 

It is said that there is an important differ- 
ence in the position of the two parties now con- 
tending for the Executive power ; that the 
Southern party, the party whose object is the 
extension of Slavery, the party supporting Mr. 
Buchanan for the Presidency, has friends and 
allies and supporters in all the free States •. 
and that, on the other hand, the Northern par- 
ty, the party opposed to the extension of Sla- 
very, the party supporting Colonel Fremont for 
the Presidency, has no friends, allies, or sup- 
porters, in the slave States. It is said, in short, 
that the Southern party is national, because it 
is enabled to present an electoral ticket in all 
the States, and that the Northern party is sec- 
tional, because, with exceptions not important, 
it presents electoral tickets only in the free 
States. This statement of the case is specious 
and plausible, but will not bear examination. 

We have, in the first place, the most indubit- 
I able facts to satisfy us that very large numbers 
I of the free people of the South dislike the in- 
stitution of Slavery, and are opposed to its ex- 
'' tension. Five-and-twenty years ago, it was the 
1 declared opinion of ninety nine in every hun- 
dred in the slave States, that the institution is 
an unmitigated curse. As late as 1832, this 
: was the almost unanimous voice of Virginia. 
Mr. Clay, the trusted leader of Kentucky, main- 
tained this view to his dying day. The con- 
; trary view was originally confined to a little 
I coterie of politicians surrounding Mr. Calhoun. 
It is an exhalation from the bogs and fens and 
swamps of the tide-water region of South Car- 
olina. We have with our own eyes seen this 
exhalation, dark, murky, and disastrous, rise 
and spread, until it has obscured the whole 
Southern horizon. As those who saw black 
clouds gather in the heavens, and veil the 
luminary of day, would still not doubt its exist- 
ence, and would still believe that it would 
again, in due time, gladden the earth with its 
undiminished and untarnished lustre; so we, 
who can remember what Southern opinions 
were, and with our own eyes have marked the 
origin and progress of the cloud which has ob- 
scured them, may have undoubting confidence 
that they still exist, and will again assert their 
power. 

It is impossible, in the nature of things, that, 
within the limits of one single generation of men, 
the unanimous condemnation of Slavery by the 
South should be changed into a unanimous ap- 
probationof it. All appearances of present unan- 
imity in favor of Slavery are palpably fictitious. 
They are brought about by a reign of terror, 
which has muzzled the press and silenced free 
speech. In most of the slave States, nobody, 
except at the peril of life, is permitted to speak 
on the subject of Slavery, unless he speaks 



in a particular way. A member of the Legisla- 
ture of Texas, having this summer expressed 
the opinion that Congress has the power to pro- 
hibit Slavery in the Territories, was admonish- 
ed by a public meeting in Galvestou, that the 
utterance of such sentiments would not be tol- 
erated iu that city. The other day, in Virginia, 
within less than one hundred miles of the Cap- 
ital of the Union, a Mr. Underwood was admon- 
ished that he would no longer be permitted to 
reside in the State, his offence beincj that he at- 
tended the Convention in Philadelphia which 
nominated Col. Fremont for the Presidency. It 
is perfectly monstrous to talk about the unan- 
imity of the South under such circumstances. It 
is the unanimity of Poland, with the Russian 
knout brandished over it. It is the unanimity of 
Austrian Italy, under the administration of Mar- 
shal Radetsky. It is the unanimity of the sub- 
jects of despotic power the world over. Intelli- 
gent men will not believe that everybody at the 
South has fallen in love with an institution 
which they all deplored and lamented twenty- 
five years ago. A change of opinion, so sudden 
and universal, with not a single new ftict to base 
a change of opinion upon, is not within the com- 
pass of possibilities. It needs very little exam- 
ination to perceive that the present show of 
unanimity at the South in favor of Slavery, is 
a delusion and a sham, and the result of espion- 
age, political and social ostracism, and down- 
right brute violence. 

There is one fact, about which there is no 
mistake, or possibility of mistake, which throws 
a flood of light upon the real state of opinion 
at the South ; and that fact is, the direction of 
emigration from it. This light is not a decep- 
tive light, broken up by a political prism, so as 
to make some objects look yellow, and others 
red, and others blue — but it is sunlight, stream- 
ing pure and serene from the god of day. 
'Here is solid ground to stand upon. When 
men break up their residences, and leave the 
States in which they were born, with all the 
world before them where to choose, and with 
no practical limitation, except to keep within 
the range of the climates to which they are ac- 
customed, they can choose freely between free 
and slave States; and the choice they make is 
a demonstration of preference which cannot be 
mistaken or gainsayed. Now, of the 838,387 
persons who had left the border slave States, 
and who were living in other States, in 1850, 
462,534: were found living in free States. And 
if allowance be made for the emigrants having 
slaves, and therefore obliged to move into slave 
States, it will be seen, that of the emigrants 
havinw liberty of choice, three fourths selected 
the free States. What was true of the emigra- 
tion prior to 1850 is still true; and why should 
it not be so? Three fourths of the white per- 
sons of the South own no slaves, and are both 
injured and degraded by Slavery. 

Everybody personally acquainted with the 
South, knows the fact to be j ust what tkese con- 



siderations would satisfy us it must be. There 
are thousands of persons, not blacks, but whites, 
in every Southern State, groaning under the 
tyranny which oppresses them, longing for re- 
lief, and vet without the means to strike the 
blow. The triumph of the Republican party, 
which would be the Waterloo of the Slave Oli- 
garchy, would be hailed with delight by vast 
numbers, from Mason and Dixon's line to the 
Gulf of Mexico, who would leap forth into life, 
and light, and liberty, like captives released 
from their chains. 

It may be true that no Fremont ticket will 
be run in most of the Southern States. There 
are very few election precincts at the South, 
where men who should presume to vote for 
Fremont would not incur a great hazard of 
having their throats cut. There is no such 
thing as law or liberty at the South, where the 
interests nr passions of slaveholders are con- 
cerned. What the slaveholders of Missouri 
have done in Kansas, the slaveholders of Vir- 
ginia, and of every other slave State, are ready 
to do this day, if occasion calls or passion 
prompts. The despotism of the slaveholders 
cf the South is the most relentless, bloody, and 
infernal tyranny, which an inscrutable Provi- 
dence ever permitted, for the affliction and pun- 
ishment of mankind. 

It is true that no Fremont ticket will be, or 
can be, run at the South, with the exception of 
three or four States, and that a Buchanan 
ticket will be run at the North ; but this only 
proves that the North is civilized, governed by 
law, and tolerant even of flagrant political tur- 
pitude; while the slaveholders restrain outward 
dissent by the strong hand. No Committees of 
Vigilance have been raised in the free States, 
to banish, under pain of death, the men who 
attended the Cincinnati Convention — den of 
thieves, as Colonel Benton, an eye-witness, 
and a supporter of its candidates, describes it 
to have been, and abhorrent to the free States 
as were its principles and objects. The South- 
ern party is permitted, without let or hindrance, 
to run a Buchanan ticket in every free State; 
but such a ticket will not receive in them any 
more votes than a Fremont ticket would receive 
at the South, if suffrage was free there, and if 
men could freely speak and write and print 
their genuine sentiments. At least as great a 
proportion of the people south of Mason and 
Dixon's line desire the election of Fremont, as 
can be found north of it in favor of Buchanan. 
If South Carolina is against Fremojt, Massa- 
chusetts is against Buchanan, and with equal 
warmth and unanimity. It Mississippi is en- 
thusiastic for Slavery extension, Vermont is en- 
thusiastic against it. If there is no Republi- 
can organization in many of the Southern 
States, it is simply because the slaveholders 
will not permit it. Ruling everything with the 
pistol, the bludgeon, and the bowie knife, they 
now undertake to take advantage of their own 
wrongs, and to plead this sham, pretended, 



6 



and fictitioua unanimity of the South, against 
Col. Fremont, as the crowning reason against 
Lis election. It is, in truth, one of the most 
persuasive arguments in his favor, because it 
is one of the most convincing proofs of the 
tyranny of an institution, the further spread of 
which it is the principal object of his election 
to defeat. 

In Kentucky, where Cassius M. Clay has con- 
quered free discussion, a Fremont electoral 
ticket has been formed, and will receive, it is 
admitted, not less than ten thousand votes. 
The city of St. Louis, the second city in the 
South, has just elected to Congress a Republi- 
can candidate, standing upon a Republican 
platform. In Maryland, the Republicans, who 
are numerous and influential, will form an 
electoral ticket, and poll a heavy vote for it. 
The numerous letters received by the Republi- 
can Association at Washington, from the far 
South, show how wide-spread and deep is the 



tinies — a difference of opinion, broad, funda- 
mental, not, to be sure, incrpable of compro- 
mise, but in respect to which the Sauth repu 
diates all compromise, exists between the free 
States on the one hand, and on the other hand, 
perhaps not a majority of the free people of the 
Soutli, but the slaveholding interest, which 
practically controls and speaks for the South. 
Such a case admits of but one solution — the 
submission of the minority to the majority. 
The difference of opinion exists, not because 
the free States have adopted any new-light 
doctrines. They are abiding by the old doc- 
trines of all the fathers of the country, North 
and South. The difference exists, because the 
South has adopted the new and modern vaga- 
ries of the South Carolina school. la exerting 
th eir power to prohibit Slavery in the Territories, 
the free States are only attempting an old ap- 
plication of an old principle ; they are attempt- 
ing nothing which can be said to be a surprise 



desire which exists there for the success of the { upon the Southern States, or in fraud of the 



Republican cause. It is only the apprehension 
of exposing the writers to ruffian violence, which 
restrains the publication of these letters, with 
names and dates. Even the organs of the slave- 
holders in the extreme South admit that Re- 
publicanism has a large and increasing number 
of adherents in their midst. 

The Mobile (Ala.) Advertiser says : 

" Well might the delegate in the late Black 

* Republican Convention at Philadelphiaargue, 
' that so rapid would be the spread of Republi- 

* can doctrines, that in four years they could, 
' with impunity, hold their Conventions in Rich- 

* mond, Virginia, or Lexington, Kentucky 



principles and understandings, express or im- 
plied, upon which the Union was originally 
formed. They are attempting nothing which 
assails a single right of the Southern States. 
They meddle with no institution of the South, 
peculiar or otherwise. They abide by all the 
guarantees and compromises of the Constitu- 
tion. Conscious of the high justice of their 
cause, they will move forward, undeterred by 
menace, coming from whatever quarter it may. 

Mr. Fillmore's argument against the election 
of Colonel Fremont to the Presidency does not 
possess even the merit of originality. It is the 
identical argument used against the election of 



' Was there not good ground for the assurance, Mr. Banks to the Speakership of the United 
< in view of the delegates in that body from | States House of Representatives. During two 
' Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee, 1 long months, on the floor of the House, and in 

* Kentucky, and District of Columbia? If he j still more violent language in the lobbies of the 

* had known how many Black Republicans House, it was insisted that the election of a 
' there were in this State and community, he Speaker, who did not receive a solitary South- 
' might have moved to adjourn the Convention, ; ern vote, would destroy the Union, beyond a 

* to meet in 1860 at Montgomery. There are peradventure. 

' men here in Alabama, and in this county, who | ^^ ^^^ ^ January 17, 1856, [App. to 
are not ashamed to own a preierence to rre- 



* mont over Mr. Buchanan." 

Conceding, however, to the slaveholders all 
they claim as to the condition of popular senti- 
ment at the South, and their pretensions are 
still altogether inadmissible. In effect, they 
assume to control the Union, because they con- 
trol the South. If they can make good this 
new doctrine of Mr. Fillmore, that no man shall 
be elected to the Presidency who cannot com- 
mand Southern electoral votes, they become 
at once the acknowledged masters of the Re- 
public. To the Jeffersonian qualifications for 
office — " Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he 
faithful to the Constitution?" — will be added 
a new one — " Is he acceptable to the South?" 

The case is simply this : A difference of 
opinion, as to the administration of the Territo- 



Cong. Globe, page 51,) Mr. Carlile, of Virginia, 
said : 

" There is not a single gentleman voting for 
' Mr. Banks, * * * who will rise in his 
* place, and say that he has the slightest hope 
' of obtaining a single vote for the gentleman 
' from Massachusetts, firom all that portion of 
' the Confederacy lying south of Mason and 
' Dixon's line. Surely, such an organization 
' * * * cannot claim to be national ; and 
' its success will, I fear, produce a state of 
' feelincr that will SdAKlil THIS GLORIOUS 
' UNION TO ITS VERY FOUNDATION." 

This is a specimen of what they said in the 
House, every day, before Mr. Banks was elect- 
ed. Even after the event, they could scarcely 
believe their own eyes, when they saw the walla 



ries in a particular vitally afiecting their des- 1 of the Capitol still firm and solid. If the Union 



was not dissolved, they did not believe it could 
long survive the shock. 

la the House, March II, ISSG, {App. to 
Cong. Globe, page 136,) Mr. Wright, of Ten- 
nessee, Baid : 

" My brief experience as a Representative 

* has greatly increased my fears that our cher- 
' ished system is rapidhj hastening to a prema- 

* iure decay. 

"Why, what scenes have transpired within 

* the past twelve months, and even since the 

* meeting of this Congress? We have seen a 

* great party built up in the North, overriding 

* everything, whose opinions were purely sec- 

* tional, whose watchwords were sectional. * * 

* Strange as it may seem, and humiliating as it 
' is, that party succeeded in getting power in 
' this House ; and you, sir, were chosen to pre- 

* side over the deliberations of this body, with- 

* out having received a single vote, directly, 

* south of Mason and Dixon's line. * * I 
< ask, sir, if these facts are not OMINOUS? " 

What was the language addressed to the 
Southern Representatives by the Republican 
party, during the protracted and ever-memora- 
ble contest which terminated in the election of 
Mr. Banks? In brief and in substapce, it was 
as follows : 

" You Southern gentlemen insist that no 

* man can be national, who cannot get your 
' votes, and that the election of a Speaker with- 
' out your votes will be an odious, sectional 
' triumph. The truth is precisely the reverse. 

* Nobody is national, who can rec^ve your 
' votes, and whoever receives your votes is, by 

* that fact, proved conclusively to be a section- 
' alist. YOU HAVE ESTABLISHED A SEC- 
' TIONAL TEST. You put the thumb-screws 

* on every man who is proposed for the Speak- 
' ership, and unless he will say that he is in 
' favor of, or will interpose no opposition to, 

* the extension of Slavery, you vote against 

* him. You stand together, a solid, compact 

* body of slaveholders, always unanimous where 

* the slave interest is touched. Nobody will 

* be elected by your aid, except somebody in 
' the interest of Slavery extension. Your tri- 

* umph in electing such a man will be a sec- 

* tional triumph, and doubly odious, because 
' your section is a small minority. You insist 

* upon a Speaker who is for extending Slavery. 

* We insist upon a Speaker who is against ex- 
' tending Slavery. You are united to a man. 
' We are not so well united as you are, but we 

* are stronger, and, with God's help, we will 
' beat you. Not one inch will we budge for 
' anybody's threats. Freedom ivas national, and 

* Slavery was sectional, when the Union was 

* formed, and we mean they shall continue so. 
' You are a sectional faction, banded together 

* for a sectional object. As you will vote for 
' no man who can receive our suffrages, so we 

* can vote for no man who will receive your 
' suffrages, as we know very well, and you 



' openly say so, that you will vote for no man 
' who is not pledged, body and soul, to Slavery. 
' We utterly deny your claim to nationality. 
' We are the only natiojial party, because, in 
' the first place, we go for Freedom, which is 
' and ought to be national, and because, in the 
' second place, we represent the large majority 
' of the nation." 

This was the language of the Republican 
party during the contest for the Speakership, 
and every word of it is applicable to the pending 
contest for the Presidency. It is no objection 
to Col. Fremont that he can carry no slave 
State. We should support him as our Repre- 
sentatives supported Mr. Banks, for the very 
reasons for which the slave States oppose him. 

This charge of sectionalism is a two-edged 
sword. If the union of the North is mad and 
dangerous, how will Mr. Fillmore characterize 
the union of the South? Does it commend Mr. 
Buchanan to our favor, that the vote of every 
single slave State is relied upon in his fa- 
vor? 

On the 31st of July, 1856, the Washington 
Union, the central organ of the Buchanaa 
party, made the following announcement : 

" With the 120 votes from the South, which 
' Mr. Buchanan is sure of, and the-27 of Penn- 
' sylvania, it needs only two votes to elect him." 

If the South may combine to elect a candi- 
date in favor of the extension of Slavery, may 
not the North unite in electing a candidate in 
opposition to it ? Are the advantages of union 
and concert to be the exclusive monopolies of 
a bad cause ? If the pending Presidential con- 
test has assumed the aspect of a sectional strug- 
gle, upon whom rests the blame, and which side 
of the contest ought we, men of the North, to 
espouse ? Shall we go with the South, whl jh 
has provoked the coniest by setting up new 
and odious tests, or shall we stand by our own 
people, our own kith and kindred, and our own 
institutions ? With the blood yet fresh upon 
the soil of Kansas, of our brethren slain by the 
minions of slaveholding tyrants, shall we ask 
permission of Virginia and South Carolina to 
elect the man of our own choice to the Pres- 
idency ? Is nobody to enter the White House, 
unless endorsed by the South ? Is the support 
of the free States to be a fatal disqualification 
for office and honors ? So it has been for long, 
but so is it not now, and so will it never be 
again. The charm of Southern invincibility 
was broken forever, on the day and hour when 
N. P. Banks ascended to the Speaker's Chair. 
The volume of slaveholding domination was 
then closed. A new era tfien dawned, which 
will ripen into perfect day, when John C. Fre- 
mont, bearing the hopes of the nation, and 
backed by exulting and resistless millions, shall 
restore the lustre of the Presidential office, and, 
casting the false gods of modern idolatry to the 
moles and to the bats, shall bring back again 
the true and ancient worship of Republican 
Liberty. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

lililllllillllilllllllllllllliiillillllllll 



011 898 318 P # 



Vv^ASHlNGTON, D. C. 

B0ELL k BLANCHARD, P R I K T E R 

1856. 



^ 



L/BRARy OP CONGRESS 



° 0^1 898 318 A 



